The Little Princesses
by Tara Laurel
Summary: Halloween fanfic. "'Maybe you're like a piñata. What do you think, Mercer? If we bust you open, what will come out' Jack heard his name screamed in unison as three sets of hands pulled him off the sidewalk and behind a tall hedge. He managed to yell for the girls to run before a hand clamped over his mouth." Bobby & Jack take Daniela & Amelia trick-or-treating. R&R please!
1. Babysitting Blues

**TITLE: **The Little Princesses

**CHAPTER/TITLE: **Chapter One/Babysitting Blues

**RATING: **T (language and mature content)

**A/N: ** I started writing this last year but never posted it as by the time I got around to thinking about finishing it, it was way past Halloween. I had already posted other belated Halloween stories. So I figure maybe if I start posting my Halloween stories early enough this year that will not happen again. Of course, as the holiday draws closer I usually get hit with more and more ideas…..

****For more Four Brothers Halloween fun, check out my other stories: Burn it Down, Curious & Devil's Night. Stay tuned for more FB Halloween stories! Maybe this year I will post my Charmed Halloween story for once….maybe….

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Four Brothers ...or Princess Barbie (I almost wrote "Princess Bobby"…..now THAT would be an interesting story…*is tempted to change chapter title to "Princess Bobby"…..*)

**Chapter One: Babysitting Blues **

Bobby hadn't even killed the engine before the front door of his brother's house burst open and two small puffs of pink and purple bounded out towards them. Bobby was out of the car and scooping a laughing Amelia up mid-run. She leapt up eagerly into his embrace, wrapping small eager arms around her uncle's neck.

In the passenger seat, Jack struggled to climb out from the car, his leg giving slight protest. He had grown used to the extra pain and time it took to do once simple and everyday movements. Reflecting her mother in every way, Daniela proudly helped her uncle.

"How are you feeling, Uncle Jack?" His niece asked, sounding like a miniature version of Camille.

"Girls," Jeremiah's voice floated from inside of the house, "come back inside."

The sisters obeyed, Amelia bravely jumping down from Bobby's arms. He smiled a crooked smile as he mumbled something about her being a Mercer. The brothers followed their nieces. Jack was barely through the door when Amelia stopped in front of him, twirling around, tufts of pink fabric spinning around her.

"Like my dress, Uncle Jack?"

"Well, hey," Jack grinned and leaned down to his nieces' level on his good knee, "what are you all dressed up for?"

"Don't you know?" Daniela crossed her arms suspiciously.

"It's Halloween!" Amelia threw up her hands.

"Halloween?" Bobby sauntered through the front door. "Nah."

"Yes it is," Amelia shot back defiantly.

"What's Halloween?" Jack snickered.

"Are you crazy?" Daniela huffed.

"It's where you dress up and gets a ton 'a candy," Daniela informed him seriously.

"Do uncles get any of this candy?" Bobby played along perfectly.

"No!" They both giggled.

"Girls, why don't you go play outside," Jerry laughed. "Stay in the backyard and no getting' your dresses dirty or your mother will never forgive me."

The little princesses eagerly obeyed.

"What's up, Jer'?" Bobby asked, all kidding replaced by a knowing and serious tone.

"Camille's mother isn't doin' good," Jerry sighed solemnly. "She's back in the hospital. Camille's already there. I'm heading there now."

"What about –" Jack nodded towards the back door.

"Girls don't know yet. Camille doesn't want them to. They lost one grandmother last year."

They three were silent for a moment as the thought of Evelyn and memories of the past year's events washed over them.

"So you want us to munchkin-sit?" Bobby nodded. "No problem, Jer'. I babysit this girl enough. What's two more?"

Jack shot his eldest brother a hard stare before muttering an insult under his breath.

"I want you take them trick-or-treating," Jerry explained carefully.

"What?" Bobby's face fell. "You serious? No way."

"I'll do it," Jack sighed.

"Like hell your white ass is goin' out there alone," Jeremiah shook his head, his fatherly vocabulary suddenly shifting. "Not while you still got that limp, man. I was askin' _both _of ya'll."

"You've gotta be kidding me," Bobby groaned. "They can chill out here."

"Bobby, please. The girls have been lookin' forward to this for weeks. Camille _made_ those dresses. Please, just this once –"

"Alright, alright. Fine. Don't beg, man. Makes you look bad. But you owe me, brother."

"Yeah, yeah," Jerry scoffed and then turned serious. "No scary movies, either."

"What?" Bobby shook his head. "You sure know how to suck all the fun outta this holiday."

"I mean it, Bobby. No horror movies. Remember when you watched Halloween with Jack and he wouldn't sleep for a week?"

"I was eight," Jack mumbled in defense.

"Well, what the hell _can _we do?" Bobby huffed.

"You can take them trick-or-treating, bring them back here. Go through the candy. Don't let them eat any of it until you've gone through –"

"You sound like Ma –"

" –and _don't _steal it, Bobby. Don't let them have a lot. I put out some movies you can watch. Put them to bed –"

"By eight. Yeah, yeah. I know the drill, Jerry." Bobby waved for Jeremiah to leave.

"Stay in the neighborhood, Bobby," Jerry warned as he grabbed his coat. "Don't be taking them where _we _used to go on Halloween. This is a safe neighborhood and –"

"Go," Bobby huffed, "before I drag you out to your car in front of your own kids."

"Alright, alright," Jeremiah finally surrendered.

Bobby and Jack followed Jerry out the door and waved him off beside his daughters. After he was out of sight, Bobby abruptly spun around and stalked back inside. Jack curiously followed, ushering the girls along with him.

"Uh – Bobby," Jack started as he watched his brother drop onto the couch cushions, "isn't there something you're forgetting?"

"Aren't we going trick-or-treating, Uncle Bobby?" Daniela pulled her face into a pout.

"It ain't even dark out yet," Bobby rolled his eyes. "What's the fun of goin' now? Let's look at these movies."

Bobby began pawing through the stack of cases on the coffee table, his features falling farther with each title.

"'It's the Great Pumpkin'? 'Garfield'? 'Casper the Friendly –'what the hell – 'Hocus Pocus' – I'm bored already."

"Bobby," Jack whispered in a low voice.

"Here," Amelia shoved a DVD into Bobby's hands. "This one's _my _favorite!"

"Barbie?" Bobby blanched. "What does that even have to do with – no way."

"She's a princess," Amelia explained, an edge of sadness to her small voice, "like us."

Bobby stared down at the cheerless child and internally and sighed. Picking up the movie again after having tossed it aside, Bobby made a show of studying the cover.

"You know? You're right. I didn't even notice." He smiled as he spoke and Amelia gleefully grinned back.

It took some persuading, but finally Bobby agreed to watch 'The Great Pumpkin' and the Barbie movie when they returned from trick-or-treating. He offered to make them supper, which in Bobby-babysitting, that meant ordering a pizza. Jack offered to cook something. The proposal turned into an argument until Daniela remarked that Bobby and Jack sounded like "mommy and daddy." That swiftly silenced all sides and Jack slunk into the kitchen. Daniela eagerly joined him and together they made grilled cheese. In the living room, Amelia drew pictures for Bobby. After dinner, the girls played in front of their uncles, pretending to be real princesses. Bobby and Jack even were given roles in their production, even if it was begrudgingly.

"Now," Daniela instructed firmly, "the evil witch _locks _us up! And _you _have to save us!"

"Us?" Bobby balked. "Why?"

"_Because,"_ Amelia sounded like an exasperated teenager, "the prince always saves the princess!"

Bobby quickly had quite enough of playing prince and suddenly announced that trick-or-treating in the daylight hours was permissible. Jack caged a laugh. Amelia disappeared diligently and reappeared with a plastic pumpkin pale. Bobby shook his head and then was distracted from her antics by his other niece discreetly tapping his arm. Bobby bent down and allowed Daniela to whisper in his ear.

"Well, where is it?" Bobby hid his amusement.

"I forgot it at school," Daniela stared at the carpeting. "I didn't want to tell daddy."

"Come on," Bobby took Daniela's hand and led her up the stairs.

They stopped once inside the girl's bedroom and Bobby began pulling a pink case from one of Daniela's pillow. He handed it to her and she merely mumbled in confusion.

"Take it," Bobby chuckled. "It's what me and my brothers and your daddy used to use. More room for candy."

Daniela smiled again for the first time since Amelia had appeared with her pale. The two took hands again and descended the stairs. Jack and Bobby retrieved their niece's coats and assisted in fitting them over the dress sleeves before braving the night.

The boys hung happily back on the sidewalk at each house and the girls gleefully rushed up to each doorstep. Jack had to restrain Bobby surprisingly only once when a miniature mummy had run into him. Bobby swung around to face the preteen when Jack bravely held out his hand. Only Jack could get away with something like that. Bobby would never hurt the kid, but Jack knew Bobby could scare the toughest tikes with just a glare.

"Robert Mercer." A coarse voice caught them off guard nearly halfway through the night. "I'll be damned."

Bobby and Jack glanced up at the house their nieces were currently plundering. A slender siren stood in the doorway. She wore a trifling amount of fabric as a witch's dress, showing more skin, and other things, Jack wasn't sure he wanted his nieces seeing.

"Caroline Doyle." Bobby whistled as he sauntered up the walkway.

Jack neglected to pay any attention to the exchange. He wasn't sure if they were flirting or fighting. Bobby got around with women almost as much as Angel, even in neighborhoods such as the one Jeremiah had graduated to. There was something to said about the Mercer charm. There was also something to be said about Mercer cheating, chauvinism and crime. Whoever this woman was to Bobby, Jack would bet it probably hadn't lasted long.

"Uncle Jack," Amelia pawed at his leather jacket.

"Let's go," Daniela whined, walking on before Jack had wielded a response.

Amelia was quick to follow her sister, and Jack was quick to follow them. Darkness had fallen over the holiday and even in this side of town, Jack wasn't about to let his nieces out of his sight for one second.

With his back turned, Bobby neglected to notice as the three youngest members of the Mercer family disappeared into the night alone.


	2. Prince Bobby

**TITLE: **The Little Princesses

**CHAPTER/TITLE: **Chapter Two/Prince Bobby

**RATING: **T (language)

**A/N: ** Part Two & the conclusion of this 2 part short Halloween story. Thanks Maxiekat for the one review ;) You're awesome. To all other readers...follow this wonderful woman's example! Just kidding...sort of :)

**DISCLAIMER: **I don't own Four Brothers

**C****hapter Two: Prince Bobby**

The trio was already a few blocks away from Bobby when Jack spotted them. Jack stiffened at the sight. A group of college students were taking up drinking residence on the street corner. They were nothing like the kind of gangs of kids he could run into in his own neighborhood, but something still set off a warning in his spine. Before he could stop her, Amelia was skipping across the street.

"Where do you think you're going? There's a toll for anyone who wants to pass."

Jack swiftly stepped in front of his nieces as Amelia's small hand slipped into his. He recognized the pack immediately. They had been in his graduating class. They had also made a living out of terrorizing every weaker student in the school. Apparently, higher education hadn't changed that. One of the drunken delinquents was donning a university sweatshirt. Another was sporting the college's football team's jacket. Jack rolled his eyes, remembering when he had confronted the same character in a high school letterman's jacket. Despite everything he had experienced since graduation and all the changes he went through, even just in the two years alone, it amused him how some things simply stayed the same.

"Would you look who it is?" The jacket cackled. "I remember you."

"Congratulations," Jack spat in a low voice. "Now, move."

"This is cute, Mercer," The Sweater snorted, "doing a little trick-or-treating?"

Jack was distracted from the retort forming in his head by the sharp tugging on his shirt. He glanced down to see a terrified Daniela. The look and the small fingers shaking inside his hand on his opposite side was enough to bring Jack to Bobby-sized bravado.

"What? You follow in your dead mother's footsteps and adopt some worthless –"

The Jacket didn't finish as Jack's fist connected with his face.

"Don't talk about my mom or my nieces," Jack warned in a dangerously calm tone.

"Wait, wait," The Jacket was actually laughing, "let me guess. Angel's? He did get around to all the slutty girls who couldn't keep their legs closed."

"Shut up," Jack grunted and chanced a step forward.

"No way. You didn't pay the toll. Give us your candy, girls."

"Don't talk to them. You think you're tough, huh? Stealing candy from kids? You forget the neighborhood you grew up in? I've been mugged, jumped, and shot. You think I'm afraid of some grown men wanting candy? You aren't getting anything from them."

"Fine. If they won't give it to us, we'll take what we can from you."

Jack ducked the first intoxicated punch, but when he turned to glance at a squealing Amelia, the second made direct contact. Jack stumbled backwards before another fist found his face.

"Maybe you're like a piñata. What do you think, Mercer? If we bust you open, what will come out?"

Jack heard his name screamed in unison as three sets of hands pulled him off the sidewalk and behind a tall hedge. He managed to yell for the girls to run before a hand clamped over his mouth. Jack fought back futilely. He felt the weight of his wallet disappear from his back pocket. Candy or money wasn't enough though. Pain was the only payment they would accept now. He thought he got kicked in the head and was turning over to delirium when a smiling pumpkin suddenly swooped down on the side of The Sweater's head. The victim of the pumpkin attack stood and whirled around to face a now empty handed Amelia. He took a step forward when a heavy pillowcase came against the back of his knee.

"Leave. My. Uncle. And. Sister. Alone!"

Daniela swung the candy with each word. She made another attempt at his stomach but this time the pillowcase was caught. With one swift tug, the candy was out of her grasp and Daniela was on the ground. Jack writhed and swore against the palm that held back his cries and curses. Amelia lost her courage then and spun around, running in the opposite direction.

"Uncle Bo –"

Her plea for help was silenced as a lankier member of the pack with glasses wrapped his arms around her body and mouth.

"Hey!" Daniela leapt off the ground and charged at the boy. "Let her go!"

"Shut them up!" The Jacket commanded callously.

Alcohol was obviously altering The Glasses' limbs. He attempted to hold Amelia with one arm and catch Daniela with the other, but missed horribly. Amelia managed to squirm and slip out as the man turned to pursue Daniela. He spun around, caught between the girls as The Jacket and Sweater still were struggling to subdue Jack.

"Let's just go," The Sweater snapped. "We got his shit."

"No way," The Jacket grunted as his knee connected with my stomach. "This is getting fun."

Jack cursed him out again from behind The Sweater's palm. He could take all the beatings and pain in the world, but subjecting his nieces to even just watch it, let alone be hurt too, was far too much for him to handle. At least so far they were merely using their own bodies as weapons. The situation could have been much worse, much deadlier, had they been back in Jack's neighborhood. This was nowhere near what some of the more devious delinquents he knew of would imagine as "fun."

"Hey!"

Jack recognized that voice and those fiercely pounding footfalls. Apparently, his attackers didn't.

"Look, pal, this isn't any of your business, so –"

The Jacket's sentence was finished with an odd cracking noise of his jaw and a slurred curse. Jack glanced up as Bobby pulled his fist back.

"Wrong. That's my brother and those are my nieces. Definitely my business."

"Bobby Mercer?" The Sweater spat.

"I'm touched. You remember me."

"Yeah. Yeah, I remember you. Go to hell, mother –"

Bobby's hand again found a mouth. Instead of his knuckles colliding with The Sweater's smirk, though, Bobby merely slapped his palm over the man's lips, silencing him in a more civilized way that didn't come naturally for Bobby. What did come naturally, was using his free hand to retrieve the gun from the small of his back. He discreetly tapped it against The Sweater's shoulder, sure that the girls wouldn't see it.

"How 'bout we watch our language in front of the kids, huh?"

The Sweater stiffly nodded as The Jacket abandoned his readiness to attack and assist his friend, dropping Jack to the ground in the process. Glasses, though, did not see the paralyzing pistol and made another move for the closest target, Amelia. Jack was off the grass and on top of the assailant before the scream left his niece's lips. Just as much as Bobby burned to put a bullet into each of these men's heads, Jack yearned to not cease only after one debilitating blow. He wanted to beat Glasses for even thinking about touching one of his nieces, and then end him for grabbing them earlier, along with the entire lot of them. The same girls that fueled his fists, also stayed them. The presence of the princesses held Jack's hands and Bobby's itching trigger finger.

"I suggest you leave now," Bobby's pleasant voice was harshly contrasted by his dangerously stormy stare. "And give back whatever you took."

Jack reluctantly rolled off his mark as the other two dropped Jack's wallet and hastily hoofed it down the street. Glasses stumbled, but swiftly followed suit.

Bobby secretly slipped his source of the scare back in its home before facing his family. Beaten and broken, Jack was already checking the girls over. Bobby suppressed a snort. In that moment, he wasn't sure if Jack reminded him of Evelyn with all the mother-henning he was doing – or of himself with the stoicism. He was a bloodied mess and had to crawl to their side, yet Jack acted as through Daniela and Amelia were the only concerns in the world.

"You guys okay?" Bobby echoed his brother's question as he knelt down and Jack released the girls from a tight embrace.

Daniela nodded mutely while Amelia gaped and pointed at Jack's face. Jack's brow bent in bewilderment at first. He brought a hand to his head and pulled it back. He hummed in surprise, as if having not noticed his injury until then.

"Sorry," Jack smiled sadly at Amelia.

"Gross," Daniela mumbled.

"Cool!" Amelia waved her still pointed finger, tracing the grotesque gash in the air.

"Oh no," Jack groaned. "You've been around them too much, Bobby."

"Just don't let your daddy hear you say that," Bobby shook his head, snickering. "You sure you two are okay?" Bobby wiped a tear from Amelia's cheek.

"I wasn't scared," Amelia lied as she wrapped her short arms around Bobby's neck.

"Me either," Daniela spoke softly, but somehow sincerely.

"Really?" Bobby arched his forehead.

"I knew you'd save us," she said simply.

"And how'd you know that?" Bobby's features were smattering of surprise, seriousness and smiling.

"'Cause," Daniela shrugged, "you saved Uncle Jack before."

And that settled it. Her small, but strong voice left no room for argument or confusion.

Bobby's gaze trailed over to a somber Jack. Jack tore his own eyes away from his nieces then and the two shared a silent moment. Bobby didn't hold it long before grinning.

"Well, I wasn't about to let anything happen to you three princesses."

Jack's face fell to a frown.

"Uncle Jack isn't a princess," Amelia scolded through laughter. "He's a prince!"

"A prince?" Bobby snorted out the words.

"Yeah," Amelia argued. "He saved us too."

"Prince always saves the princess," Bobby smirked and cleared away another dried tear from Amelia's face. "What _were _you doin', jumpin' all up on that fu – guy – Cracker Jack? Tryin' to send yourself back in a wheelchair? Or maybe, you just liked –"

"Don't, man," Jack killed the joke he could sense coming. "I wouldn't've had to if the two little princesses had run when I told them to." Jack eyed his nieces. "But those were some good hits," he winked.

"I just can't believe they risked candy to save your sorry –" Bobby cleared his throat as he glanced away from his little brother to his nieces. "But he's right. Somethin' like that happens again, you two run, okay? You run as fast as you can. Got it?"

Both girls nodded.

"Promise?" Jack tacked on for good measure.

"Promise," they answered in unison.

"Good," Bobby stood and carefully lifted Jack to his feet, a silent question in his eyes.

"Good," Jack responded, reassuring Bobby with a thin and crooked smile.

"More candy?" Amelia asked abruptly.

"Nah," Bobby sighed, collecting the spilled sweets, "I think you both have enough sugar to be up all night."

"Bobby, we ain't lettin' them eat it all," Jack whispered as he attempted to clean himself up.

"'Course we are." Bobby beamed. "Gotta give Jer' some sort 'a payback for this night. '_Safe neighborhood'_. Right."

"Wasn't all bad," Jack said as he stared down at his smiling nieces.

"No," Bobby nodded, doing the same. "Guess not."


End file.
